


Down Among the Dead Men

by entanglednow



Category: The Walking Dead
Genre: Claustrophobia, Gen, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2010-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Are we safe when we're locked in, are we really safe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down Among the Dead Men

  
The tank is a sealed metal box, locked from the inside. There's no way for them to claw their way in. There's no way for them to reach in and drag him out. He's safe in here. He's safe.

But Rick can still hear them against the side, fists banging on the metal, fingers scraping. He can’t hear the slow crush and push of them, but he knows. He can feel the thud and scrape overhead. They’re climbing the outside of the tank, swarming over its surface like insects, a layer of the dead, packing him in, crushing him in tight.

He can hear the too-quick rasp of his own breathing, can feel the sweat rolling down his neck. Body still desperate to escape, to get away. He leans his head back against the metal. It's cold, almost too cold on his skin. If he turns enough to press his ear against the side he can hear the echoing thrum of a hundred moans, a thousand.

It doesn't feel safe in here. It feels like a claustrophobic nightmare. An airless box crammed with his own breath and the smell of dead bodies. There's no way out of here, no way past them. He'd be torn apart the minute he tried. He'd be the one dragged down and screaming, body cracked open and pieces of him ripped out, fought over.

He pulls himself away from the wall, lets his head rock forward and covers his ears. He breathes like that for a long minute until all he can hear is the over-loud rush of it in his head. The thump of his own heartbeat, the rush of his own blood reminds him he's alive. He's alive even if they're not.

He wonders if they can still hear him in here. Or if they just know, if they remember, clawing at the outside because they remembered the noise and the smell of him. If they'll just claw at where he was until they can't move any more. However long that is.

Rick lets his hands relax, draws them down the cold, damp skin of his neck.

He can still faintly hear the thumps, but he doesn't feel like he could scream himself raw any more.

There's a word that catches in the back of his throat and trips over his teeth and tongue.

Zombie

Zombie.

Any other time in his life, any other place, that would leave a hysterical laugh somewhere in his chest, a little hitch of amusement and mockery.

But he can hear them. Jesus he can hear them. That wordless hunger, that _mindless_ hunger - he fights not to remember the way they'd reached for him. When he'd been crawling on his belly on the ground with the feel of a dozen hands, a hundred fingers grasping for his legs, catching on his boots and the leg of his pants and tightening. Desperate for him.

He's stopped thinking of them as anything close to alive. Those things that used to be people, pieces that used to be people.

How did this happen?

How the fuck did this happen?

  



End file.
